Fewer than six decimal places in EUDR coordinates

What the Information System does

The Information System's documentation does not describe rejecting short coordinates. The regulation, however, defines geolocation as coordinates "using at least six decimal digits" (Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, Art. 2(28)). We warn, and explain why it is not an error (Our own check, not an Information System rule).

A broken example

{
  "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "features": [
    {
      "type": "Feature",
      "properties": {
        "ProducerCountry": "CI",
        "ProductionPlace": "Rounded",
        "Area": 120
      },
      "geometry": {
        "type": "Polygon",
        "coordinates": [
          [
            [-5.12, 6.12],
            [-5.11, 6.12],
            [-5.11, 6.13],
            [-5.12, 6.13],
            [-5.12, 6.12]
          ]
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

What the checker reports for this file:

1. No coordinate in this plot has more than 2 decimal places (-5.12), which is about 1.1 km of uncertainty. The data was rounded somewhere before it reached this file; the regulation asks for at least six decimals., line 15, column 13

Fix it in EUDRplot

1. Open the file in the checker. Plots whose coordinates never reach six decimals are listed. Each plot is judged by its most precise coordinate.
2. Go back to the source. The digits were lost before the file reached you: in a spreadsheet column formatted to four decimals, a GPS app setting, or an export option. Export again with full precision.
3. Do not pad with zeros. Adding zeros to reach six decimals does not add precision; it only hides that it is missing.

Fix it in QGIS

1. Check the export precision. When saving as GeoJSON, look at the layer option COORDINATE_PRECISION. Set it to 6 or more; a lower number rounds the coordinates.
2. Check the source layer. If the source itself holds only four decimals, QGIS cannot restore the rest. The data has to be collected or exported again.